Japanese graduation

Yesterday I went to school to watch the 卒業式 (sotsugyoushiki) graduation ceremony...

(Now, this following example is typical of my Japanese school life. :P)

I'd asked Madoka and heard the bus driver mention it, so I knew the bus would take me to school like usual at 7:50 AM. Other than that, I had very little information. I knew I should probably go up to my classroom, because that was where Madoka said I should leave my bag, and I figured that was where I was most likely to find some of the other students from my class. So I put my cute black loafers (actually Madoka's, they're borrowed) in my shoe-shelf and exchanged them for my not-so-cute pink plastic slippers. They're kind of funky, though. (I think maybe Pet Hedgehog would like them <3)>Once I came up to the classroom, I found about two - three other persons there. So where were the huge mass of students? Weren't they all coming to school? My teacher's repeated shrieks of "Zettai yasumanaide! Zettai gakkou ni kite ne! Yasumi jyanai kara, ne!" ("Don't take the day off! Be sure to come to school! It's not a holiday, OK?!") combined with my wanting to see a Japanese graduation had made me come today... so why did I alone make up 25% of the attendants? Something was off.

It turned out that the entire geibun (the half of our class that studies performance art - dance, singing and so on) had been told there was no need to come because there wasn't room for everyone anyway. So I moved on to the next question: "OK, so when does it start?" "...Uh... I have no idea. Sorry." So after asking around I still had no clue - because nobody else seemed to know either. I didn't know when it started, where we were supposed to sit or... anything, really.

My saviours turend out to be Mr. Dazey and my tea ceremony teacher. Dazey told me it started at 10 (why the bus went so early and why we had to wait so long I do not know), and my tea ceremony teacher told me that the second year students should be sitting approximately in the middle of the hall. Information obtained!

So after hanging around and waiting for about an hour, I went into the hall trying to look for some of my classmates to sit with - not easy! Still, with a little help from Oosaki-sensei (my kyudo teacher) I found a place to sit by Mori, a girl in my class. Yay!

The graduation ceremony in itself was not spectacular in any way, but I'm happy I came to see it anyway. They did a roll-call, reading the names of every single student (all 300-something of them!) in the third year, and they all answered and stood up. Then a representative for each group would come up and get the diplomas. Then there were a million boring speeches. Somewhere along the line I dozed off and came to again - just to discover there were more speeches. Oh yes, the joy!

Still, I really liked when they all got up, and shouted "thank you!" to the teachers. And then turned around and shouted (towards the parents) "Dad, mom! I've managed to graduate! Thank you for these 18 years!" ...and then there was the obligatory amount of tears, of course. =p (Which, in spite of my slight mockery, I can relate to)

...so, all in all, I'm happy I went. And of course having today off was good too. =) Tomorrow there's another big round of tests that I'll fail impressively. So wish me luck flunking those tests! :P

Oh, and I found this at Maren's lovely blog (in Norwegian). It made my day, so I'm sharing it with all of you (who are also YouTube addicts, right? Right? o(>////<)o )

Location: Japan!
Mood: twilight~ (blame youtube, seriously. I want to see that movie. Now.)
Listening to: Momo jumping on a big sheet of bubble wrap. It's driving me crazy. D: So I'm turning up the volume of Tori Amos' "Winter" instead. <3>
Eating: No
Drinking: water

PS: blogger keeps killing my text format. (Which explains the text size here and at the "Sotsugyo kouen" post.) And I can't figure out why! It annoys the living daylights out of me. I even made a template for it! Grrr...